Wrongful Conviction

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Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a podcast about tragedy, triumph, unequal justice and actual innocence. Based on the files of the lawyers who freed them, Wrongful Conviction features interviews with men and women who have spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit - some of them had even been sentenced to death. These are their stories.

Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a podcast about tragedy, triumph, unequal justice and actual innocence. Based on the files of the lawyers who freed them, Wrongful Conviction features interviews with men and women who have spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit - some of them had even been sentenced to death. These are their stories.

Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a podcast about tragedy, triumph, unequal justice and actual innocence. Based on the files of the lawyers who freed them, Wrongful Conviction features interviews with men and women who have spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit - some of them had even been sentenced to death. These are their stories.

Language:

English

Episodes

Following in the footsteps of his beloved and iconic grandfather, Ndaba Mandela has taken the torch and run with it. Today, Nelson Mandela’s legacy continues as Ndaba keeps its beacon of hope bright, fueling his message that one person can make a difference. Ndaba is a man passionate about Africa, its people and concerned about its future.
In this candid interview, Ndaba discusses his passion for criminal justice reform and his commitment to a new generation of young Africans that he hopes...

Although Valentino Dixon has never played golf, he wouldn’t have survived 27 years in prison–for a crime he did not commit–without it. A few years into his sentence of 39 years to life, Dixon returned to his childhood passion of art to help him cope. He began sketching landscapes of golf courses with color pencils. His breathtakingly detailed sketches led to a profile in Golf Digest magazine. That article in Golf Digest, helped bring other media attention to Dixon’s case and prompted...

In her new book Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction Lara Bazelon makes a powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the Innocence Movement so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal.
Tony Wright is one of those exonerees.
Wright endured two trials and 25 years in prison before a jury found him not
guilty for the rape, sodomy and murder of Louise Talley, a 77-year-old woman in
Philadelphia. Mr....

In forty-eight other states and in federal courts across the country, a conviction requires a unanimous vote – all jurors must agree on whether a prosecutor has met the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. For hundreds of years, dating back to common law before the constitution, the trial by jury has been repeatedly described by Justice Antonin Scalia, quoting Sir William Blackstone, as:
“the most transcendent privilege which any subject can enjoy, or wish for, that he...

In this special edition of Wrongful Conviction, Jason Flom is joined by Sadhguru to discuss his revolutionary work that has helped reform prisons throughout India.
Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author who ranked amongst the 50 most influential people in India by India Today. Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest civilian award of the year, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.
Probing and...

Rafael Madrigal and co-defendant Francisco Olivares were charged with committing a drive-by shooting in East Los Angeles on behalf of the Ford Maravilla gang and convicted in January of 2002.
Witnesses testified that Madrigal and Olivares committed the July 2000 shooting. Madrigal contended his innocence from the beginning; at the time of the shooting he was at work at Proactive Packaging & Display in Rancho Cucamonga, approximately 35 miles away.
The petition submitted on Madrigal’s...

DAMIEN ECHOLS was born in 1974 and grew up in Mississippi, Tennessee, Maryland, Oregon, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. His wrongful conviction, sentencing, and eventual release as part of the West Memphis Three case is the subject of Paradise Lost, a three-part documentary series produced by HBO, and West of Memphis, a documentary produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh.
The West Memphis Three are three men who – while teenagers – were tried and convicted, in 1994, of the 1993 murders...

Noura Jackson was egregiously framed and wrongfully convicted of murdering her mother, Jennifer Jackson, in Memphis, TN in 2005. Amazingly she spent over three years in jail awaiting trial before being sentenced to 20 years and nine months in prison. No physical evidence linked Ms. Jackson to the murder, and DNA testing not only excluded her as a suspect, but it also suggested that two or three different people were present at the crime scene. The Supreme Court of Tennessee overturned her...

It’s been over 10 years since the murder of Meredith Kercher, British exchange student killer while studying abroad in Italy. That crime sent an innocent American student named Amanda Knox to prison for four years . At just 20 years old Knox became embroiled in an international scandal that captivated the world. The guilty verdict at Knox's initial trial and her 26-year sentence caused international controversy, as U.S. forensic experts thought evidence at the crime scene didn’t make...

Susan King served nearly seven years behind bars for a crime she didn’t commit. Then in 2012, another man confessed to that crime. In November 1998, a fisherman found the body of 40-year-old Kyle Breeden in the Kentucky River near Gratz, Kentucky. He had been shot in the head twice with .22 caliber magnum bullets and his legs were bound with guitar amplifier cord. He had last been seen October 26, 1998. Kentucky State Police was never able to solve the crime. Almost eight years later,...

Kim Kardashian West first heard about Alice Marie Johnson through a short video about Johnson’s life behind bars on Twitter. Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old-great-grandmother, was given a life sentence for a first-time-nonviolent-drug-related crime and was not eligible for parole. At the time, Johnson had already been in prison for 21 years. Kardashian West retweeted that video from Mic.com saying “This is so unfair” on October 25, 2017. That single tweet and Johnson’s story moved...

Listen to a special preview of Jason Flom’s interview of Kim Kardashian West as she discusses her involvement in Alice Johnson’s release and her advocacy for criminal justice reform and clemency. The full episode will be available Wednesday, September 5th.

It’s been almost 30 years since the brutal rape and beating of the Central Park Jogger that sent five innocent men to prison they were known as the Central Park Five. This case and their stories captivated New Yorkers. This season we heard from one of the five: the incredible Yusef Salaam. But the first guest on Wrongful Conviction was Raymond Santana, and as the sixth season of Wrongful Conviction comes to an end, we are looking back. Raymond was only 14 years old when he was wrongfully...

In 1999 Luis Vargas was convicted and sentenced to fifty-five years to life in prison for three sexual assaults. He was accused of being the notorious“teardroprapist,” a methodical serial rapist that terrorized women in Los Angeles.
Before being sentenced Vargas stated,“…Iwill pray for God’s mercy on all of you…but as far as I’m concerned, as far as I’m concerned[the]individual[who]really did these crimes might really be raping someone out there, might really be killing someone out...

Since his release in April 2018, Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill is using his voice and freedom to fight on behalf of those still behind bars. In this special interview, Mill is joined by his friend and ally Michael Rubin, e-commerce billionaire and co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, to discuss their hopes for criminal justice reform.
SOCIAL:
Follow Meek Mill and Michael Rubin:
Meek Mill: Instagram and Twitter
Michael Rubin: Instagram and Twitter

On December 27, 1996, before the sun had risen, 35-year-old Tyrone Camp was fatally shot in the head and back as he was warming up his truck at Active Transportation Co. in Louisville, Kentucky. The murder was witnessed by Kenneth Brown, who told police he had seen the assailant running away, but that he could not identify him.
The first suspect in Camp’s murder was his wife Cecilia’s former husband, Juan Leotis Sanders. But the focus shifted to Kerry Porter Porter, who had also once been...

Calvin Johnson was just 25-years-old when he was wrongfully convicted for the rape of a woman in 1983. Johnson served 16 years for that crime. In 1999 a judge ordered a new trial for Johnson DNA tests were done on samples collected from the rape kit. The DNA testing concluded that Johnson was not the perpetrator. The District Attorney decided to drop the charges against Johnson after looking at the DNA test result. Johnson was the first man freed exonerated in part to DNA evidence in the...

On the night of April 19, 1989, a 28-year-old female jogger was brutally attacked and raped in New York’s Central Park. She was found unconscious with her skull fractured, her body temperature at 84 degrees, and 75 percent of her blood drained from her body. Five teens from Harlem—all between the ages of 14 and 16-years-old—were tried and convicted of the crime in one of the most frenzied cases in the city’s history.
The woman was dubbed the “Central Park jogger” and the accused teens...

On January 11, 1988, shortly after 10 p.m., Fitzgerald Clarke and Steven Hewitt were fatally shot in Brooklyn, NY outside of a building where they sold drugs. Shabaka Shakur, a friend of both victims, was brought in for questioning after a witness told officers that Shakur harbored a dispute over money he owned Hewitt. Another witness told police that Shakur admitted to committing the crime before he was arrested, but this witness never testified and recanted in 2014.
In Detective Phillip...

In 1999 Guy Miles was convicted of robbery and sentenced 75 years to life. He was placed at the scene of a crime by eyewitness identifications. According to the California Innocent Project, stranger eyewitness identifications are the single leading cause of wrongful convictions in the world. Despite a high rate of error(roughly1 in 4 stranger eyewitness identifications are wrong), they are still considered the most powerful evidence against a suspect. It was exactly these kinds of...